Category: Meeja
From the Courier Mail comes this paragraph about the Boy from Oz thang:

The $20 million arena spectacular, about the brilliant career and tangled love life of performer Peter Allen, will keep Jackman busy until the end of the month. Producer Ben Gannon had suggested the $24 million musical could go on to the US for a tour of major cities.

Where does the dollar figure come from in the first place and how can it increase by 20% in the space of a single paragraph?

The payment of lawyers on a time basis does not provide an incentive for the efficient conduct of trials. And finally, efforts to reform the litigation system have systematically been sabotaged and wrecked by lawyers. [As Napoleon said, the administration of justice is too important to be left to lawyers.]

Arthur Marriot, QC
The Sydney Morning Herald
18 November 2005

Even in a legal system where the overwhelmingly most significant influence was the desire for justice, lawyers' payments would naturally sway process in favour of a more time-consuming procedure.
BTW (and off on a completely orthoganol topic), that attribution to Napoleon (which was not in the Sheehan book but was in the original aritcle in the SMH) was interesting to me because it was later paraphrased by Robert R. Coveyou as:

The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance

I'd thought I'd first seen that in Knuth's Semi-numerical Algorithms but when I went to the dead tree archive I couldn't find it (though Coveyou is referenced many times throughout the book). I did however find the following attributed to Knuth:

Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random

The dead tree archive is a bit of a pain because there is no search button. Add to that the disastrous fonts in TeX and you have a very squinting Semi.

Category: Gone
The doctors had predicted sometime ago that he would die and, in a last ditch attempt to keep the bastards honest, he has.

Mr Chipp was born in the Melbourne suburb of Northgate on August 21, 1925, and educated at Melbourne University.

Where's Northgate in Melbourne?
Also, in the article DB quoted, the TTT said "He is survived by his wife Idun Welz, who he married in 1979, [and] their two daughters, Juliet and Laura" whilst the compulsory pay TV operation said "He is survived by his wife, Idun Guda and two sons". One of them has to be wrong for my money. Still, it's the Age and the ABC; we'll never keep those bastards honest!

The genitals of polar bears in east Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants.

They base this spectacularly useless conclusion on the study of 99 datapoints:

Sonne and his colleagues looked at formaldehyde-preserved genitals from 55 male and 44 female east Greenland polar bears, collected from 1999 to 2002 by about 30 polar bear subsistence hunters regulated by the Greenland government.

So these were polar bears that were slow enough to be caught. There might have been some selection going on right there.
We. Have. Way. Too. Many. Scientists. In. This. World.

Category: Media
I'm a fan of the team from The Chaser Group of Companies but I still reckon they miss a bit more than they hit. It was never easy for me to watch the Friday night show but could generally catch the repeat on ABC2 on Sat'days. When they started vodcasting (or whatever it's called) I went to watching it on my iPod Video which I've been pretty happy with. It appears that I may have become a demographic! (at my age)

Category: Culture
Aging Folkie says we're going to hell in a handbag. I think he's missed more than one point here. Semi may well buy into this but surely it's a combination of Content, Demand, Production Quality and Producers delivering what they reckon folks want rather than what the artist/producer wants for the product -- let alone the ability for artists to produce content and use the 'net for subsequent distribution (although the liner notes will never look as good as the 12" vinyl sleeves did). Or am I being far, far too simplistic here? (wouldn't be the first time)

Category: Truckin'
Around about a quarter of a century ago when I was part of a country band called the Techno Truckin' Cats, I wrote a song that went something like this:

We've got forty forty-fours full of foam beads
Welded to the sides of our big Mack
We've got waterproofed doors and a well greased donk
And a Mercury outboard on the back
We're going truckin' in the Carribean

Category: Ouch!
I was walking through a children's playground at the southern end of Shore Reserve in Pascoe Vale South at approx. 8:50 this morning and was attacked by a magpie. It hurt. It is still bleeding. I thought I'd better call the local council but they had no interest; in fact the woman implied it was my fault for walking through the park between August and October. I said that I thought that someone should be aware of the danger because the normal users of the playground, 3-5 year olds, would probably have little concept of August and October and given that the beast nearly knocked me out and drew blood it could probably do some real damage to a toddler. The council worker suggested I ring the Department of Sustainability and Environment. I did. The person I got through to said that there is no register kept of swooping birds and that there was no authority for me to report this to and nothing could be done.
Am I the one that has gone mad? I don't give a damn about this bird and its chicks; by not responding to situations like this we are endangering small children. The bird should be destroyed post haste. If it was a dog, it would be reported in all the local press.
Just One Guy's Opinion™.

D.H. Killeffer had a dire warning for gasoline-greedy Americans. The chemical engineer had crunched the numbers -- he compared the country's production of crude oil with its thirst for gasoline. "Estimates based on the most complete data now available place the end of our gasoline supply between ten and twenty years, with the odds in favor of ten rather than twenty," Killeffer, secretary of the New York division of the American Chemical Society, wrote in the New York Times.
The year was 1925.

Category: Telly (Sets)
I curently have a medium size 4:3 CRT telly from Sony which I'm pretty happy with. My kids are starting to get some curry as their friends all have (mostly low-end) wide screen/flat screen tellys. I'm slightly confused about the LCD -v- Plasma debate (although, I'm sure Semi would sort me out pretty bloody quick if I was brave enough to ask him). I know I'm gonna have to spring for something WS/FS soon. Here's an article.

Category: Steyn
I went to the I.P.A.'s C. D. Kemp lecture last night and managed to stay awake about 4 hours beyond my usual effort. The folks over at Diogenes' Lamp have covered the lecture very well and I suggest you go there for a nice summary. The text of the lecture (which must be read, Jack) was in this morning's Oz, here.
I only have a few shallow observations to make:

I went in on the 55 tram and was expecting to take a tram up Collins Street from Williams Street to the Parliamentary Precinct where the Park Hyatt has quite stealthily hidden itself. I manged to walk all the way (at the southern end of peak hour) without a single tram overtaking me. I enjoyed the walk but I should have been there earlier. "Thanks" go out to the minister for dodgy how-to-vote cards.

The food was flagged by the Lamp folk as being a bit "unidentifiable". That is being kind. Why don't they just put plates of party pies and sausage rolls (and maybe even the odd quichey thing or asparagus roll for the sheilas) onto the table and forget about the pretension of "dinner"?

Back onto the public transport topic, my homeward cab driver (Ahmad not Ahmed: was this just a strange romanisation or what?) hit the button on my arrival at home with the meter at $20.10. I looked in my wallet and found a $20 and he said "don't worry about the .10¢". I was shocked and had to reach into my pockets to find a few gold coins for him.

Highly-placed British Intelligence sources have revealed how MI5 and Scotland Yard were able to foil the attempted midair destruction of several passenger jets headed from the UK to America this week. Minutes before takeoff, undercover agents surreptitiously switched the terrorists' bottles of liquid explosives with gallon jugs of Tuscan Whole Milk.

Category: Tradition
Funny place New England.
Rhode Island (RI) is the only state to get a holiday today/yesterday and Massachusetts (MA) has had another very successful Sales Tax Holiday. (been to both states have I -- they were both funny)

Category: Global Warming
I don't normally post about this sorta thing but this caught my eye(s):

Personally, I don’t know what all the shouting is about. Global warming is great. Granted, maybe it isn’t really happening, and if it is there are strong reasons to doubt that humans have anything to do with it. But if the world is warming, I say “bravo.” People in most parts of the globe should have no objection to a warmer, wetter climate. If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose.

Hey! I think I just used "blockquote" for the first time! (if it worked)

Category: Medicine
One of my more regular reads is John Brignell's Number Watch. Here is a magnificent presentation on epidemiology from him. If you spend any amount of time with doctors you should get a full understanding of the contents thereof.

Category: Awards
For many years i have felt that industry awards such as the Oscars and the Emmys are a case of "a bunch of my mates got together and took a vote and decided I'm a good bloke". Ellen Burstyn seems to be considered a good bloke for turning up in a movie for a full eleven seconds.

Category: Temporary
Hopefully this won't last long...
Tim Blair has pointed at an ABC news page containing a photo purportedly from Lebanon which has plainly been doctored in photoshop. LGF has a full analysis.
UPDATE: Over at The Shape of Days is a fascinating analysis of the whole story from a Photoshop perspective. It could be used as a Photoshop tutorial. Well worth the read to understand what all the fuss is about. Read this one, Jack!
UPUPDATE: The ABC has withdrawn the photo and "apologised". Miracles can happen.

Category: GreenThe eco Enquirer is kind of like a National Enquirer for environmentalists. I personally wouldn't vouch for the veracity of all of the articles in either publication but they are sometimes fun to read.

Category: Publishing
DB's reference to the Melbourne Tram Book was good and the book is good but he pointed at the unswpress site which suggests a price of $24.95. The 2005 edition is $25.95. I will get good value by leaving it in the loo and looking at it every now and then. Your Mileage May Vary™. BTW, DB, I have a copy now.
Also, even with the extra buck, the supposed tear-out postcards do not have the expected perforations. Expect to use scissors rather than the suggested approach on the back of the book.

Even Monty Python could not have scripted Senator Ian Campbell's decision to protect one theoretical parrot every 1000 years and block a major infrastructure project in Victoria.
The Environment Minister's decision is absurd and must be reversed.
Last week, the Herald Sun revealed that on March 10, Senator Campbell's own department recommended the project be approved and found "no direct evidence of any impact on the orange bellied parrot at Bald Hills".
In spite of this, the minister has continued to bluster.

Ruckelshaus became the United States Environmental Protection Agencyâ€™s first Administrator when the agency was formed in December 1970. During his tenure he oversaw a three-month hearing on DDT, after which he simply ignored the recommendations of scientists and instituted a politically-inspired DDT ban.

The difference between the two is that undoubtably the former is the right decision for the wrong reason (there are plenty of reasons not to build wind farms) whilst the latter was the wrong decision for the wrong reason and had the outcome of tens of millions of lives lost. Fortunately for many very poor people in the world, things are getting better with the recent WHO recommendations.

Jesse Adam Macbeth (born Jesse Adam Al-Zaid,[1] 1984) falsely claimed to be an Army Ranger and veteran of the Iraq War. He lied in alternative media interviews that he and his unit routinely committed war crimes in Iraq. Macbeth began to attract significant attention after the release of a video containing his allegations; transcripts of the video were made in English and Arabic. According to the U.S. Army, there is no record of Macbeth being a Ranger, [2] or serving in a combat unit: he was discharged from the service after having been declared unfit or unsuitable for the Army, or both, before he could complete basic training.

Terry Lane didn't bother with the search presumably because he thought the story was too good so he submitted a column about Macbeth to the TTT without even a limited check on its veracity.
Slatts (who I spent a very pleasant couple of hours with over lunch last week) asks:

How will The Age explain its massive blunder?

Will Media Watch mention it tonight?

Is the Pastor to be put out to paddock?

How long before an Age apologist uses the phrase “fake but accurate”?

And points to Tim Blair's take on the matter where, as Slatts notes, there is "[m]uch chortling and wise-acre commentary".
UPDATE: Noted in the comments mentioned above is the irony of the columns headline: Turning a blind eye to the real horrors.
UPUPDATE: Terry Lane has resigned.

Category: WHWTMSITW*
We should now be well over the notion that fish oils are an elixir of life. As stated here, analysis of trials on fish oils shows that it is difficult to see any clear benefits from taking them. What we have instead is scientists creating bizarre research linking learning ability and absenteeism with sandwiches. Also, a study of 68 people for 12 weeks lead "scientists" to believe that fish oil can have significant effect on the condition of your heart 40 years from now. Prove it science dude!